It is alleged that a hacker group leaked data on army personnel using the Bharti Airtel network in Jammu and Kashmir. However, the company denied any breach of its system. The group, named Red Rabbit Team, hacked some Indian websites and published the data on the web pages of these portals. The hackers shared some links to these web pages on Twitter in a comment on a tweet by cybersecurity researcher Rajshehar Rajaharia and tagged several media organizations.
The inquiry, sent to the Indian Army, did not provoke an answer, but an army official said: “We are not aware of such information, but it seems that this is a malicious intent of some hostile elements.”
When contacted, a Bharti Airtel spokesman denied any disruption to his server. “We can confirm that there is no hacking or violation of any Airtel system, as claimed by this group. Many stakeholders outside Airtel have access to certain data in accordance with regulatory requirements. We have informed all relevant authorities on the matter in order to investigate this and take appropriate action. “This group has been in touch with our security team for more than 15 months and has made various claims in addition to publishing inaccurate data from a specific region,” the spokesman said.
The links shared by the hacker were initially available with a mobile number, name and address of subscribers, but stopped working after a while.
The Red Rabbit team said it had access to Bharti Airtel’s pan-Indian data via a shell uploaded to the company’s server and more data would soon be leaked.
Mr Rajahariya said the hackers had not shown any credible evidence of possession of all-India data of Bharti Airtel and it was also unclear how they had obtained subscriber data.
Telecommunications operators are required to provide access to government and law enforcement authorities on the subscriber registration portal (SDR).